Semiconductor electronics have exhibited a sustained exponential decrease in size and cost with a similar increase in performance over the last thirty years. While such progress is expected to continue for several years, the economics and/or physical barriers of continued use of silicon for increasingly small and more powerful devices will ultimately pose a challenge. For example, if only currently available technologies are employed, the costs of building the necessary manufacturing facilities will likely become prohibitive due to the shrinking size of devices, heat dissipation problems due to closely packed structures, non-uniformity in dopant and conductive materials, and high electric fields that may lead to a cascade of breakdown events within closely packed components.
Moreover, increases in pollution have been tied with increased energy consumption for at least the last several hundred years. Accelerated global warming and environmental degradation make the development of alternative energy sources an urgent priority.
The world therefore needs new sources of energy and new materials for use in fuel cells and nanoelectronic devices.